The landscape truly begins to rise up and fall down, the hills smooth and growing steeper. Far away the forest and the mountains rise blue, so wide under the open sky echoing cries of eagles and the clicking from the cassette as my bike rolls freely down the hills. I feast my eyes as long as I can, until I am in a valley again and have to begin another climb.

Between the fields the forest rises high on both sides, sometimes elevated by red cliffs, cut flat to make way for the road. Here and there are round holes, big as my fist and arranged in clusters. As I approach, handfuls of bright yellow birds fly out of the holes and perch in the trees across, until I have passed.

…

I duck into the field, crouch every time a car passes on the road to let the tall grass conceal me. When the sound dies off I get up, heave up the bike and continue toward the trees, stomping my feet just in case of snakes. As if they haven’t heard me already. The dry grass parts for me. I make my camp and hang my fabrics to dry; the setting sun sweeps the patterns into pink along with the sky and the field. The trees are already black silhouettes. I make my little campfire and nestle the cup into the embers, stare at the pulsing reds as the crickets sing and the coffee begins to boil; later, while the coffee cools, I stare up into the stars.

…

In the last village before the real mountains I leave my phone to charge at the charging station. It is also a small IT-shop, with phone cases sparsely covering the walls and heaps of cords concealing the two desks. Along the main road, sacks of charcoal are lined up, the tops extended with palm leaves sewn into the edges. Everyone is napping in the afternoon heat. Trucks stop to fill up on gas. I find a small cafe and have a thick omelet stuffed into soft, dense bread, the oil soaking salty into the fluff and the cup of hot, bitter nescafé delicious despite the heat.

It is after this village that the asphalt ends. Ahead the red sand buckles up and down and to the sides, the trenches dug by heavy wheels alternating left and right; pretending to give options for a “better route” along the same, hopeless stretch of road that will demand time and patience no matter what.

Heavy trucks, loaded twofold over the top, pass me to creep and sway slowly into the peril. On the bike the sand doesn’t bother me, up until the point the road gets too steep and I have to get off and push. The road doesn’t look steep, doesn’t even really feel like I’m walking uphill until I turn to look back and see the elevation. When the forest opens up I am stunned to see the mountains surrounding me, suddenly close.

…

I feel slow and it stresses me; thinking about the time I have to keep, the date I need to be in Freetown and the hundreds of kilometers until then. I don’t know what to make of the elevation profiles as they’re spit out by my mapping apps. This is just for a short stretch, I think. Soon the road surely flattens, the asphalt will return and I’ll be able to make up for the time. I don’t think I will be pushing for long.

I push for two days.

The sun is unforgiving and the shade is never enough. The hot air just pushes out more sweat and I am almost out of water. I lean forward into the handlebars, every step slow and heavy and the mountain just keeps on curving its back under me. In some parts they are constructing the road, cutting down the sides of the mountain. In those places I see the road ahead, and it just keeps rising higher and higher.

Then the road turns around a bend and suddenly a soft, timid melody reaches me: the sound of pouring water. The forest is more dense, the trees taller and the shade cooler. Pathways lead in to the stream: splitting and running down rocks, pooling and hurrying off again, under the road and off to tumble down on the other side.

I leave the bike and wrap myself in a fabric. In one of the pools I submerge as much as I can, let the water carry away the dust and fatigue, the cold on my face rousing me to the ascent ahead, my little translucent, mushy nerves drinking the chill of the water just like the roots of the trees around me. Leaves fall leisurely into the pools to let the cool water caress and tug at them. I wash my top, my shorts and my scarf, only happy to have wet clothes to wear.

Just as I am finished I hear an engine. A car comes around the bend, struggling up the hill and under the weight of the luggage swaying in big bundles on its top. On top of the bundles are three more passengers, in addition to the six squeezed inside besides the driver. They jump down as the car stops and the doors open. The passengers make their way to the stream to sigh, splash their faces and fill their bottles. Some make their way further down the road to urinate. They nod greetings to me but mostly stay quiet; the heat in the car must be even worse than on the road. After a moment they get back into the car and climb up on top, the doors close and the car heaves off again, leaving a trail of dust behind. I watch them go. Reluctantly I pack up, leave the stream and follow.

…

The sun is setting and I am still pushing my bike. All day, still uphill. Around me is a field, yellow grass billowing before it’s cut off by a steep descent. A faint roar of an engine grows stronger behind me.

The truck stops level with me and three grinning, boyish faces peer down on me from the cabin.
“Are you coming onboard?” the one closes to me shouts. I have to smile.
“Thank you, I’m all right!” I yell back. They laugh, give me the thumbs up and the truck startles forward again, painstakingly heaving uphill. As they pass me I observe the trailer, loaded way over the top with tightly packed wood. I laugh and shake my head; the sweethearts. The boys looked barely older than sixteen. What are they doing, driving around in lorries on roads like these? And where were they expecting to fit me?

I pass the night in the cold. In the morning I greet two cows hanging out by the road and then the road magically leans downward. Then the asphalt returns. I pass more yellow fields with billowing grass and then I spot a town in the distance. The first houses are empty; big, half-finished castles standing in the field, with no roads leading up to them and no people moving around them. They are waiting for doors and windows, for walls to line the compounds and small shops to take up spaces in the bottom floors, facing the streets not yet there. The sheet metal roofs are all orange and new, the designs all different but the owners away, just the breeze drafting through and swaying the grass around. I roll through the silence of the field and the houses, looking forward to the cooked food I will have in the town and mentally bracing for the mountains that will no doubt continue up ahead.

…

(This story told in pictures part one, two and three, and video.)